


A Compilation of Be More Chill Meta

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Meta Essay, archived from tumblr blog icouldwritebooks, non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 13:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Tumblr isn't a reliable place to host stuff, and the word on the street is that AO3 welcomes fandom meta as well as fic.  Here you will find a compilation of headcanons and mini essays on Be More Chill related topics, crossposted from my blog.





	1. Chapter 1

**Preface**

AO3 accepts meta. I like writing it. I've noticed that one or two things I've posted in the past have seemingly disappeared from my blog, so I'm reposting any meta or headcanons lists that I spent a significant amount of time on here. The titles of each chapter will let any interested readers know what category of essay or headcanons to expect.


	2. General BMC headcanons

\- So, obviously Michael and Jeremy share a lot of the same interests. Ninety-nine percent of those interests were started by Michael. Michael gets _really really_ obsessively passionate about stuff, and Jeremy tends to follow along. Side note, pre-Squip Jeremy isn’t that good at the whole being his own person thing.

 

\- There are, however, some interests that Jeremy brings to the table. Like X-Men. Michael likes it well enough, but it’s very much Jeremy’s thing. When Jeremy was a little kid, it was dinosaurs, and Michael went along with him and learned every dinosaur name, and helped him arrange his toy dinosaurs into categories and stuff. Jeremy is also a huge animal person more than Michael is (shhh, I can hear those furry jokes from a mile away, and you know that’s not what I mean).

 

\- A lot of time Jeremy turns to Michael for verification that he’s totally normal, and not some kind of freak of nature. It’s easy when they are kids, and Jeremy mostly just wants to know whether or not it’s weird and uncool that he hates ketchup. It gets a bit more awkward when he’s older and wants Michael to try and gauge whether or not his ~internet activities~ are in fact totally normal and valid.

\- Jeremy and Michael are both hardcore trekkies. Michael’s favorite in Next Gen, but he also likes Voyager. He pretends not to know what shipping is, but he highkey ships Tom Paris/Harry Kim. Also Geordi/Data.

 

\- While we’re on the topic of sci-fi, Michael is pretty into 90s/early 2000s sci-fi TV. So, you know, stuff like X-Files and Farscape.

 

\- At one point, the squad are all hanging out together, and one of those late nights where things get emotional and overly personal, so they all go around and say who their Squip was. It’s kinda cathartic. Michael feels left out, so he insists that if he had a Squip, it would be flying roomba with eyes.

 

\- The characters do not all end up being friends right away! They end up being friendlier, but building true friendships takes time. Michael has a hard time trusting Rich, and no earthly idea what to make of Chloe. Chloe starts off sometimes putting down Christine. It takes Jake and Jeremy a while to find any common ground to talk about.

 

\- Jeremy is dyspraxic (undiagnosed until post squip). Michael is autistic. Christine, as per canon, has ADD. Speaking of which, Christine goes to the school’s special ed classroom for one period every other day, to get help with organization and making sure she understands her homework assignments and stuff. She has mixed feelings about the teachers there, and some other stuff, but is really happy when Jeremy starts going too during senior year.

 

\- Rich misses so much during the two years he has his Squip in. The Squip did all of his school work, so Rich really has no idea what he’s been studying. Rich doesn’t actually know how to drive, because his Squip always did it for him. His first time in a car post Squip was harrowing to say the least. Also, he was missing a lot of information about how to handle school and take care of himself in a healthy manner even before the Squip. 

 

\- Christine can make up song lyrics on the spot like a pro.

 

\- Christine is uncomfortable with the idea of finding a long term romantic partner while she’s still in high school. You know that line “most people do one thing for all of their lives / the thought of that gives me hives”. Also applies to dating. Like, going out with someone can be fun, but she’s pretty up for discussing the many benefits of waiting a good long time before settling down.

 

\- Michael is a as gay can be, but when he and Christine first become friends he briefly panics and thinks he might be falling in love with her. You see, after a lifetime of only being friends with Jeremy (who he is in love with), he doesn’t really have anything else to compare that new friend feeling to.

 

\- Speaking of which, Michael is ~incredibly~ bad at sorting out and recognizing his own feelings. His default mode is relatively cheerful, but sometimes something is upsetting him, and it doesn’t really register (or it registers, but he can’t figure it out), until he’s in the middle of a major crash.

 

\- I feel like at some point in their early twenties Michael, Jeremy, and Christine get an apartment together, and they are all willing to do their housecleaning, but have no idea how. Michael is okay, as long as you give him small spots. Like he decided he was in charge of the dishes, and he tackles that task really well, but otherwise his idea of cleaning is to meticulously fix that one corner that nobody ever looks at anyway. Jeremy will decide half way through brushing his teeth that he needs to sweep, and then be seen in the living room with the broom and his toothbrush still sticking out of his mouth. Christine mostly just thinks about cleaning, until she panics and blitzes everything, but even then it takes forever, because she flies from room to room without much rhyme or reason.

\- Post Squip, it takes Rich and Jeremy a while to stop being slightly wary of each other during in person interactions, but Rich sends Jeremy a text every night to tell him that he’s a good person, that the things his Squip said to him weren’t true, and that he needs to keep hanging in there. Jeremy responds in kind.


	3. Jeremy Heere is dyspraxic, fight me (a headcanon list)

So, dyspraxia. It’s a learning disability that can affect things like spacial awareness, speech, coordination, planning, and a million etceteras, because when you have dyspraxia a ton of things are up.

[Here's a chart of the basic symptoms](https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=g7%2beZsxH&id=4CCAB274B62EA29BC0E55F9910C81F3407DC15DD&thid=OIP.g7-eZsxHmZNy3WEX5utBpwHaFu&q=dyspraxia+&simid=608041687655580000&selectedIndex=0)

And now, some Jeremy based headcanons:

*Dyspraxia tends to be under-diagnosed and not all that well known compared to other things like dyslexia etc., so as a little kid Jeremy does spend some time in the special ed classroom, but his symptoms never quite fit any of the possible diagnoses thrown at him. His mom pulls him from the program, and was honestly pretty scandalized that he was in it in the first place. When Jeremy meets new academic things, like reading, he tends to start out with extremely shaky skills (or a complete lack of skills), and stay that way longer than other students, but once he gets something, he _gets_ it. However, he’s not self-aware in that respect, so he just kind of assumes he’s like lazy, or terrible, or something.

*As a little kid, he did a lot of coordination based tasks strangely, and had to be taught the “correct” way of doing them. Things like going down stairs, holding a fork, walking heel-toe, etc. His take away from that was an unshakable belief that he does things wrong and everybody is staring at him and judging him. Always. Especially on stairs.

*It took him forever to learn how to read an analogue clock, but for the longest time he and Michael were in the same class, so Michael covered for him. He’s literally like thirteen before he starts being able to read analogue clocks, and even then there’s a pause.

*Michael also tied his shoes for him until he was eight. The act of sneaking Jeremy off to get his shoes tied was an advanced covert operation.

*He knows which way is left, and which way is right, but he has to _think_ about it, and split decisions are as likely to be incorrect as not.

*He steps on Michael. A lot. Jeremy accidentally stepping on the back of Michael’s shoe when they’re walking together is a daily occurrence.

*Big hand gestures have resulted in many occurrences of Accidentally Hitting Michael, which has resulted in Jeremy adopting smaller hand gestures in general (usually he just fidgets with them in his pocket).

* He repeats himself a lot, but so does Michael. A lot of their conversations are actually the same conversation over and over again with minor changes. When Christine gets added to the mix, she also tends to repeat herself a lot, so that works out.

*When he was learning how to drive, his mother more or less had a panic attack sitting in the car while he practiced. Then Michael’s moms assumed she was overreacting and tried to teach Jeremy how to drive. It was a harrowing experience for all involved, and should he ever get the driving thing down, Michael has been warned not to get into a car with him. But mostly he’s given up on the idea of driving.

*Stuttering. Somewhat less pronouncedly as he gets older, but it comes out when he’s nervous, excited, or tired.

*His sense of where things are in relation to him is somewhat off. Moving objects (or people) tend to feel closer than they are, like they are all coming at him at once. That makes navigating the halls between classes a special kind of hell, especially because he’s very uncomfortable with even non-hostile individuals bumping into him.

*He enjoys theatre, and is a good actor, but takes a long time to learn the blocking. Christine stays after and helps him. He worries that he’s taking up her time, but time in the theatre is her favorite kind of time, so she’s happy to stick around late and help Jeremy. They actually have a lot of fun.

*His directional sense is notoriously, ridiculously, ludicrously off. After two years of walking to and from school most days, there was some kind of construction project on the side of the road that he was used to walking on, and literally just having to walk on the other side of the street was enough to make him feel lost and panicked.

* But, I mean, it’s Jeremy, so when does he not feel lost and panicked? He’s anxious about everything, always… which is not a dyspraxia symptom, but he’s got a lot of those, does not know what they are until some time post Squip, and is prone to thinking that himself are the world are falling apart.

*Jeremy gets diagnosed towards the end of junior year. It’s helpful, because he can do research into why he does things he does, and perceives things the way he does. The Squip changed and uprooted a lot of Jeremy’s usual responses to things, and the effort of trying to get himself back and be more true to himself post-Squip leads him to be more accepting of things about himself that he wasn’t accepting of before the incident happened.


	4. The one where I over-analyze  Loser, Geek, Whatever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: This was written before I got to see the show, pretty much right when audio of the song first started to leak. 
> 
> Notably, the thoughts I posted -after- seeing BMC live seem to be among the things that are missing from my blog. Oh well. 
> 
> I haven't changed anything from the original essay (except to remove some typos), so enjoy the bonus commentary on my lunch that day.

Before I start, four things-

1) There are spoilers in this post.

2) I haven’t seen the song performed yet, so everything here is based on leaked audio.

3) I like writing essays for fun. This is an essay that I am writing. For fun.

4) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, Be More Chill has a new song, and that’s exciting! It deals with Jeremy’s choice the neural block Michael, and does a lot to further development of Jeremy’s character, and his motivations. In particular, I think it expanded a lot on two aspects of Jeremy that were possibly there between the lines in the original version of the show, but are really given a fresh spotlight in this song and its lyrics. Those aspects are Jeremy’s dissatisfaction in his friendship with Michael, and his complete rejection of himself and his instincts due to the corrupting influence of the Squip.

So! Let’s start with Michael (you know, since half the BMC fandom starts and ends with Michael). It’s easy, watching and listening to the lyrics of Two Player Game, and the other songs at the beginning of Act I, to take an idyllic view of Michael and Jeremy’s friendship. They’re a team through everything! Michael is Jeremy’s favorite person! Michael is always there for Jeremy, right up to and including going with him to the mall to help him buy the Squip.

However, “Loser, the Geek, or Whatever” shows that Jeremy was dissatisfied with Michael, even before the Squip came on the scene. Right at the beginning of the song, Jeremy states that “being lonely’s super tough”, which is interesting, because he’s not shown as being alone. He’s got Michael. He and Michael are practically attached at the hip. However, Michael is only one person. For Michael, everything is “fine” when he’s “a half of a pair”, but for Jeremy that’s clearly not enough. He’s lonely, and Michael’s insistence that all they need is each other may even be aggravating Jeremy’s feelings of loneliness. I found the following lyrics particularly telling of that:

“Michael thinks that weird is rad /  
but feeling weird just makes me sad /  
And I deserve to not feel bad.”

So much of Michael’s schtick is based on the idea that being a loser is totally awesome and cool. We get Michael cheerfully asserting that he and Jeremy are both losers right from their very first scene together. Similarly, in “Two Player Game” Michael flat out tells Jeremy that he’s “just a nothing in this high school scheme” and claims that he’s the only one who thinks Jeremy is cool. Worse yet, he says all this in an attempt to make Jeremy feel better. Not only does this clearly not work, it also shows a strong friction in Jeremy and Michael’s friendship, and a clear values dissonance between the two of them.

Jeremy is a character who is searching outside of himself for a leader. He wants somebody to “help [him] out” and “teach [him] how to thrive”. Before the Squip, the only the people in his life with the potential to help him and take the lead are Michael and Jeremy’s dad, and Mr. Heere is checked out and hanging in his undies, which leaves Jeremy with only Michael. A lot of this comes down to headcanons and stuff, but I’ve always seen Michael as the leader in the Michael/Jeremy friendship. He’s the one with the strong personality, and interests bursting out all over the place. Jeremy never actually mentions having interests, aside from porn, video games, and an offhand x-men reference. Michael’s the one who gets excited about out of print games and retro skates and all that. Are these even really Jeremy’s things? He’s seen going along with them, but Michael’s the one who is getting excited. Michael talks about his pac-man tattoo along with all of this, but unless something has changed in this version of the show, Jeremy isn’t shown as having one. I think I even saw some kind of creator comment floating around that Jeremy isn’t confident enough to get a tattoo, but don’t quote me on that. But anyway, my take on things is that within the Michael and Jeremy team, sometimes there’s a lot of Michael influence, and nearly as much of Jeremy, and yet at the same time, Michael isn’t successfully swooping in and leading Jeremy to success and happiness, which is what Jeremy is looking for.

Also, even if Jeremy does want somebody to lead him, I get the sense that he also wants to be the leader, and the dynamic between him and Michael has formed in a way that doesn’t allow for that. In “Loser, Geek, or Whatever” we get this line:

“I’ve felt inconsequential since middle school began /  
I knew I had no potential to be the leading man.”

People who don’t *want* on some level to be the “leading man” don’t feel “inconsequential” when they aren’t. There are so many things that Jeremy wants, but he doesn’t have the confidence to go after them himself, so he hides behind Michael. Michael, as I’ve said, fails to bring Jeremy everything he wants (you know, because it’s 150% not Michael’s job, and being the only good thing in somebody’s life is an impossible shoe to fill), so Jeremy gets bitter. Jeremy doesn’t know how to articulate this, and might be in denial that he’s feeling it at all, but it’s there.

And then, everything really comes to a head towards the end of the song, where Jeremy is getting increasingly vehement and impassioned, and he basically spits out that *he* is player one. Now, I know that who is player one and who is player two in the Michael/Jeremy dynamic is somewhat of a headcanon thing, and I’m basing the idea that Michael is Player One on a vague memory of seeing somewhere that one of the creators said he was. If he’s not, then whatever, I’m sitting in my pajamas at 2:00 PM on a Sunday eating cold leftover Chinese take-out food and talking out of my ass about a musical I haven’t seen yet. But assuming Michael is Player One, that line is huge. It’s Jeremy gearing up to both erase Michael, and replace him with this shinier, meaner, more mercenary version of Jeremy himself. It’s big.

But, tl:dr Jeremy and Michael’s relationship was dysfunctional from the start, and Loser, Geek, or Whatever highlighted that. New songs are new. Over-analyzing everything is fun. Stay tuned for another essay on Jeremy, Jeremy’s instincts, and the Squip. I was going to write that here, but this is over a thousand words already and needs to end. Also, an essay on Be More Chill and icky toxic nice guy geek culture (including the ways that it both subverts and plays into that). Stay tuned for essays. All the essays. You’ve been warned.


	5. That time an anon asked me for writing advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This (including the ask) is copy and pasted verbatim from tumblr. I feel kind of weird posting writing advice, because I feel like it implies that I think I'm an especially good writer, which I don't. I did spend a lot of time typing this response up, however, so it gets to go here. Also, I like thinking and talking about writing and fandom, so there it is.

**Anonymous asked**

_heyyy i have a question!! i love love loveee your bmc writing!! i was wondering if u have any tips on writing the characters (specifically jeremy and michael lol) in character? if you don't feel like answering thats fine!!! thanks so much!!!_

This is a really interesting ask. Playing with characterization is 90% of why I write (what is a plot again?), so I get flattered when people like what I do there. Some things I think of, when writing for BMC (and often fandom in general):

 **1) Keep in mind that everybody is going to write the characters differently!**  
Be More Chill is like, what, two hours long? The longest fic in the tag on AO3 is 159,380 words long! That’s massive! Obviously, people are adding tons of their own ideas and interpretations to the characters to be able to write so much about them. There are so many different headcanons, backstories, futures, tics, and personality quirks floating around for the BMC squad, and there’s not a lot of canon to disprove any of it. So, for example, if I’m writing a story and I claim Michael thinks sushi is gross I’m probably doing something wrong (or at least something that needs some explaining). If you write a story where he cares deeply about rhinoceroses and has 17 siblings… you know what? There’s certainly nothing in canon that says otherwise, so as long as you stick with this as your story progresses, your characterization is top notch.

Even within canon, different people are going to latch on to different things. For example, my fic “Stammer” 90% grew out of the bit where the Squip tells Jeremy “all your stammering’s a chore”. Other people, even hearing that line, might not decide that that’s the particular aspect of Jeremy’s character that they want to emphasize. They might assume he doesn’t regularly stammer, and he’s just doing it at that point because the Squip is freaking him out, or their story might just be focused on something else, so it doesn’t come up.

Basically, there’s no one version of Jeremy, Michael, or any other character. Zoom in on the stuff from canon that you want to explore. Add additional details that will make the story fun and interesting for you. If writing original fiction is like baking a cake from scratch, then fan fiction is like being handed a cake that somebody else baked, and being told to go crazy decorating it. You can even smash the cake, set it on fire, and throw it out the window if you want. Make an AU where the cake is a vampire. Enjoy.

 **2) What ever way you choose to write the characters, make sure that they have faults.**  
Nobody is perfect. Jeremy and Michael aren’t always going to get things right, even by each other. With Michael, for example, I think it’s really important to keep in mind how he approached Jeremy at the Halloween party. He leapt out of a bathtub with his monster hand or whatever, and startled Jeremy, who was already nearly panicking at that point. He never asked Jeremy any questions about what was going on with him. He sort of gloated and lorded over the information that he had. There are clear reasons why his rescue attempt was not successful, and they weren’t *all* about Jeremy being an ass and the Squip manipulating him. Michael remains eminently sympathetic throughout, and he’s obviously in distress and doing his best with what he has, but the situation is complex, and he makes mistakes. If you try to keep things similarly complex in your writing, even when setting your favorite character up for a Michael in the Bathroom level moment of relatability, your writing will be awesome.

Beyond honest mistakes, I think it’s important to let the characters do genuinely bad things sometimes. This is another thing that the musical itself does a really good job with! When Jeremy mentally blocks Michael, we as the audience have been led to intimately understand what happened to bring him to that decision, and we’re deeply in involved in this narrative that is clearly not intended to make us hate Jeremy, but we know that he’s making a morally incorrect choice. Michael tends to come off in a better light, but that point where he was demanding an apology to Jeremy before giving him the Mountain Dew Red? At the very least it was ill-timed. I think when writing the characters, it’s very important to keep their who they are at their worst in mind just as much as who they are at their best.

 

**3) Relationships have their faults too!**

Optic nerve blocking aside, how do Michael and Jeremy hurt each other? Are they too close? Does being as comfortable as he is around Jeremy prevent Michael from seeking out other companions? Do either of them ever ask too much of the other? Would promptly getting married the day they graduate high school be a good idea? If you think not (I totally think not), then why? If you think it would be fine, what problems what they might still run into?

**4) Also keep in mind who the characters are to other people.**

Contrast how excited Jeremy sounds whenever he says Michael’s name, and the way Michael warm, talkative, and bouncy around Jeremy, with how Rich calls Michael “anti-social headphones kid”. How is his behavior around Rich different than his behavior around Jeremy? What is Rich seeing? How about Jenna? What is she seeing when she looks at pre-Squip Jeremy? You know how Jeremy is all smiles, and just soaking up Christine’s happiness and enthusiasm during “I Love Play Rehearsal”? What if Christine went on that same exact rant to Chloe? How would Chloe process and describe Christine in that moment? Or would Christine even allow herself to have that moment with Chloe?

**5) Projecting and drawing from events in your life can be really good, as long as you think about how the events would be different for the characters.**

I’ve seen a lot of “vent” fics where the characters go through something the author is currently going through, and that kind of thing can be a good starting point. It can be really useful to think of an event from your life, and how the character might feel and behave differently than you.

To use an example from my own writing, I wrote a bit in Stammer about Jeremy going house sitting with his mom, and her stealing his inhaler. How did I think of that? One time I was house sitting with my dad, and he stole my inhaler. However, my dad is not Jeremy’s mom, and so he did it for a different reason (My dad was frequently homeless and had no health insurance, so he couldn’t afford an inhaler. Jeremy’s mom was trying to teach him a lesson about not stealing medicine). Jeremy felt differently about it than I did (He thought he kind of deserved it. I felt betrayed). The final solution was different (Jeremy had a panic attack and was given his inhaler back. I talked the situation through with my dad, and we shared the inhaler for the remainder of the trip, and then I agreed to lie to my mom and say I’d lost my inhaler so she’d buy me a new one once we parted ways). Basically, what I’m saying, is seeds of things that happen in my life make good starting points sometimes, but I do it while keeping in mind that I am not the characters and the characters are not me. If you’re ever stuck on what to write, though, picking a random event that happened to you where your character of choice would feel and behave in a drastically different way than you did is a fun creative exercise.

**6) Think about what kinds of words and things the characters use that you never would. See if you can incorporate them into your narrative voice.**

So, Michael is a really interesting voice to play with, because he’ll use words like “banging” and “gnarly”, but he’ll also use words like “heinous” and “whereupon”. So what I get from that is that he uses a lot of slang terms that are a bit incongruous with how teens these days generally talk, but he also throws in some gold star vocabulary here and there, and that’s what I have to play with in terms of Michael-voicing a story.

When you’re writing, it’s useful to decide how close you want your narrative voice to be to inner voice of you POV character. If you’re going for a more omniscient narrator, I think it gives you the freedom to use any phrasing you want without needing to worry about whether or not you’re breaking character. If you’re going for a limited POV where the narrator sticks close to the character’s thought process, then you have to consider what words are going through their mind. For example, since my narrative voice tends to be limited, I wouldn’t write a sentence like “Michael leaned in to kiss the freckle-faced adolescent”, because I don’t think Michael’s thought process, upon kissing a boy with freckles, would be “I am kissing a freckle-faced adolescent… so adolescent…. so befreckled.” Of course, you might have a different opinion on that, which goes back to the first point, about how there are a million ways of viewing these characters.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s all I’ve got. Hopefully this didn’t come off as prescriptive, because that’s super not my intention. The how and why of writing stuff is a topic I like thinking about and talking about, but not one that I’m an expert on..


	6. Michael analysis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand I found this one searching my files for something else.

**Written in response to somebody on tumblr saying they didn't understand what another poster meant by saying "Michael did shitty things too"**

I don't think “shitty things” is the right wording. Michael consistently sticks by Jeremy and does his best in a very shitty situation. 

That said, he absolutely *is* an imperfect character who makes mistakes. Let's go through a few of them: 

1) He fails to realize how desperate Jeremy is. Michael is satisfied with their two player game. Jeremy is not. Jeremy feels isolated and worthless, and Michael reinforces this. He literally tells Jeremy that he's the only person who appreciates him (“dude you are cooler than a vintage cassette, just no one else but me thinks that yet”). He actively points out that Jeremy is a loser in the whole high school social scene, which is the last thing Jeremy needs to hear. Michael and Jeremy are unhealthily codependent, and Michael does a lot of foster this. In Michael's mind he's just being realistic about where he and Jeremy stand in the high school social hierarchy. What he's trying to tell Jeremy is that it's okay, because it won't last forever and they have each other's back. The problem is that he and Jeremy aren't on entirely the same wave length there, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of the things Michael says and does are harmful to Jeremy, even if he would never in a million years purposely hurt him. 

2) At the party, Michael approaches things really badly. So, Jeremy runs into the bathroom after Do You Wanna Hang, and Michael pops out of the bathtub dressed as some kind of a weird trash monster thing, startles him while he's already low key panicking, and expects that to work? He starts right off with lecturing Jeremy, and points out that he should really be lecturing him _more_ (“I had this whole pissed off monologue…”). He's done research and knows that Squips are bad enough that at least one person ended up in a mental institution because he went crazy trying to get one out, but he doesn't even stop to ask Jeremy what’s going on in his brain, or whether or not he's alright. 

3) During the play, Michael will not give Jeremy the Mountain Dew Red until he apologizes. We don't know how much research he's done on Squips and their creepy sci-fi super powers, but we know he knows they are bad news. He very much deserves an apology from Jeremy, but his behavior is sort of like knowing Jeremy has been poisoned, holding the antidote in his hands, and refusing to give it over until he gets what he wants out of Jeremy. Not cool. 

 

So yeah. Those are my examples. But here's the thing— Michael comes off as a good, kind, wonderful, supportive friend because he *is* all of those things. He does stick with Jeremy and help him in spite of Jeremy treating him horribly. He does and says the wrong thing a lot, but so would anybody in those circumstances. I don't know many adults, let alone high schoolers, who would be able to effectively deal with the whole Squip situation. Even taking things out of the realm of science fiction, a pretty common narrative when it comes to abuse victims is that their friends tried to help but accidentally made things worse, or that their friends gave up or took things like the abuse victim ignoring them personally and got angry, because it does hurt when your friend ignores you, and it's not always so easy to understand the complexities of another person’s life. 

When people say “Michael did shitty things just like everybody else” I think that that is short hand for saying that Michael is imperfect, just like every other character. Portraying him as a beacon of goodness who can do no wrong removes a lot of his humanity, and ignores a lot of what makes him complex and interesting. So does going in the other direction, and making Michael a straight up jerk (which I think is easy to accidentally do, as a writer, when trying to make _any_ character’s faults take center stage in a story. Finding balance is annoyingly hard.)

Anyway, there seems to also be a small subset of the fandom that believes Jeremy to be a horrible asshole, and Michael to be a darling angel-baby who was ~hurt~ by Jeremy’s irredeemably evil dastardly badness, and some of the “Michael did shitty things too!!” discourse could be a reaction to that. 

I hope you are having a lovely day, and that you enjoyed my impromptu essay.


	7. Be More Chill 8/4/2018 matinee thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on tumblr shortly after seeing the show off Broadway.

These are going to be sort of jumbled, but I saw the show yesterday, and noticed stuff.

 

\- Some people had pointed out that the conversation about Madeline losing at pool deliberately had been changed to one about her being French. At yesterday’s performance, it was changed back to her losing at pool, and Jake saying it was a good thing he rocks at pool. The only difference from the cast recording was that at one point Brooke called Jake a hot mess.

 

\- Jason Tam’s Squip = Cool because he is young and relatable and probably spends his Saturdays tossing back mimosas on the beach while being Young and Beautiful. Super amiable and charismatic, so much so that one could be lulled into thinking that he’s not utterly ruthless in pursuit of his (or Jeremy’s) goals until it’s too late. Older brother or upperclassman friend figure.

 

-(Meanwhile Eric William Morris’s Squip is Cool because he is untouchable and scathingly sarcastic. He probably spends his Saturdays being intimidating and contemplating how stupid everyone else is. Knows how to rock a suit. Smooth enough to lull people into a false sense of security. Dad figure.)

 

\- Side note, a few years ago I saw Jason Tam playing a cute gay doctor in If/Then, and he absolutely oozed benevolence in that one, so seeing him be the villain in BMC was a cool switch.

 

\- Jeremy in this production (through a mixture of Will Roland’s performance and changes to to lyrics/lines) gave more of an entitled nerd boy vibe. I think it was all the talking about how he *deserves* this during Loser, Geek, or Whatever. It’s an interesting change from the original production where he specifically says that he doesn’t want to be special at the same moment.

 

\- That said, when he first gets the Squip, there is *a lot* of the Squip shocking Jeremy and controlling his body right from the Squip song. What I’m saying is, the Squip starts off going so hard on Jeremy, that I get the feeling he’s already been changed and corrupted a lot by the time Loser, Geek, or Whatever happens.

 

\- Will Roland had a powerhouse voice. I was impressed.

 

\- Stephenie Hsu stole every scene that she was in.

 

\- During Upgrade there was a bit where the Squip was kind of hugging and caressing Christine to show Jeremy what he could have, and it was very creepy.

 

\- The part where Will Roland most sold the idea of Jeremy being anxious was right before I Love Play Rehearsal. That was good.

 

\- Christine seemed so uncomfortable at the Halloween party.

 

\- Right before (or during? I forget) Pants Song, when Jeremy’s dad points out that Michael is standing around in his underwear, Michael looks so abashed, and tries to pull down his shirt to cover himself.

 

\- During Smartphone hour, Chloe, Brooke, and Jenna are all clearly themselves, while the male cast members are in drag and therefore not their characters. The interesting thing, though, is that Stephenie is also in a different colored wig at this point, which implies that at that moment she is not Christine. She’s somebody else. Christine wasn’t involved in the Smartphone hour gossip.

 

\- That works well with Christine getting upset when Jeremy tries to talk to her later, and pointing out how horrible it was that they were laughing at Rich during the party when he really needed help.

 

\- Right at the beginning of the bathroom confrontation between Michael and Jeremy, Jeremy tries to hug Michael, and Michael stiffens and pushes him away.

 

\- When Jeremy is in the hospital and tells Michael that he has a headache, Michael continues to talk about how the Squips were connected, and destroying one destroyed them all ~bang bang bang~, but he whispers the “bangs”, getting increasingly quieter and closer to Jeremy as he does. It was actually really sweet.

 

\- The new Pitiful Children lyrics and other changes make it very clear that Jeremy’s objective is strongly and unshakably Christine.

 

\- The “I’ll be a better friend if you be a better dad” bargain was cut out of Pants Song. I’ve written rants about how terrible that bargain is if you really think about it, but actually I missed it.


	8. Mr. Heere

One thing I don’t see brought up all that much is BMC fan works is a lot of the potential issues involving Jeremy’s dad. So here’s a bullet point list of a few thoughts -

\- In the musical the no pants thing is treated comedically, and that works. The Pants Song is super funny and a total bop. IRL if you’re a kid, and your parent is going through enough emotional turmoil that they can’t get dressed, that’s terrifying. Jeremy is clearly used to it by the time the musical starts, but that doesn’t change the fact that the sole person responsible for taking care of him can’t put on clothes.

\- When Mr. Heere has his big awakening as to the state of Jeremy, he immediately goes to Michael, another 16-17 year old kid, to fix it. And, I don’t mean he goes to consult Michael to see what’s up. I mean he sends Michael off to do the rescue mission on his own. Why (other than the fact that his actor needs to play Mr. Reyes) isn’t Mr. Heere there at the play?

\- The musical ends with Mr. Heere present at the hospital, and clad in pants. However, up until that moment, Mr. Heere was clearly grappling with something extremely difficult personally. He’s had an eye opening experience, but I don’t think that when somebody is floundering the way that Mr. Heere is at the beginning of the show that it’s possible to make a full recovery over night. I think that Mr. Heere is going to make some changes, but there will also still be set backs, and they can’t happen overnight.

\- In conclusion, I think that Jeremy and his dad’s relationship and situation is going to improve after the events of the show, but Mr. Heere isn’t going to suddenly become the stereotypical perfect dad, and the two of them are still going to have a lot to work through.


	9. Academic headcanons

Academic headcanons by character - 

Jeremy: Bs, Cs, and occasional As before the Squip. Not in AP classes or anything like that. Cares a little, but more out his constant search for validation than any real academic passion. Grades plummet post Squip, and he graduates high school by the skin of his teeth. Drops out of college on his first try, but does really well on his second.

Michael: Incredibly smart, but will not study things he’s not interested in. Grades don’t figure into his sense of self worth. Tries not to do too badly, because it worries his moms. Major slacker. Grades all over the place. When he imagines college he’s imagining the lifestyle, not academia. Also does worse in school post Squip, but isn’t in danger of flunking out. Has a good college experience.

Christine: Tries really, really hard. Has accommodations so she can take longer on tests. Has a chip on her shoulder and the feeling that she has something to prove. In higher level classes for English/History/theatre, and lower level classes for math and science. Tends towards As, but has failed a class before, and it hurt.

Rich: Slow Reader. Considers himself stupid. Struggles even more with things post squip, because while he had it he just let it do everything for him, and he’s got big knowledge gaps and is in the wrong classes a result. Tries. Continues going to school right up to the last day of senior year, even after it becomes clear there’s no way he’s going to earn enough credits to get a diploma.

Brooke: Teachers’ pet! Loves history the most. A little embarrassed by this. Good grades. Attractive orginizational system. Probably has a secret studyblr. Has secretly written a few essays for Chloe because Chloe was stressed. Good at math, bad at science. Comes off as ditzy, partially as an act, but partially because when she misses something, she misses big (like signing up for an astronomy class because she thought it’d be about the zodiac, something she will never live down.)

Chloe: Makes fun of the color coded tape Brooke uses to divide her notebooks (in a “friendly” way). AP classes. Pretends it’s easy and she doesn’t care, but her parents will kill her if she doesn’t do well. Has cried over Bs, but privately. Has also lost her phone for months over said Bs. hasn’t been given a chance to care about learning for learning’s sake. Just doesn’t want her parents to get on her case.

Jake: Good At Everything Via Relentless Work and Effort and It Hurts (but shh, that’s a secret). Tries to tutor Rich post Squip, for like two days before Rich freaks out a little and gives up.

Jenna: A way better tutor than Jake! Likes it, because if she’s explaining how to do a math problem, people are listening to her. Good at retaining information. Good at stem subjects.


	10. The x-files AU nobody asked for

(Note: I’m imagining like season five Scully & Mulder, but set in the same time period as BMC. Just go with it.)

 

\- So, it’s like a typical Monster of the Week episode, with the Squip playing the monster, and the BMC kids making up the roster of quirky guest stars.

 

\- It begins with Scully walking in to work and Mulder being all ~Scully you aren’t gonna believe this!~, as Mulder is wont to do.

 

\- And Mulder is like zomg pill sized Japanese super computers are taking over the brains of nerdy high school students across the country!!!!

 

\- Scully, ever the skeptic, has a lot of questions about how such technology would even work, and why it’d be inside the heads of average high school nerds instead of big time government officials or whatever.

 

\- They find a news report about The Play. Scully doesn’t think a bunch of theatre geeks taking ecstasy constitutes an x-file, but Mulder is convinced he’s on to something, and they’re off.

 

\- Somehow they find Michael. They’re like hi random kid we are FBI agents do you know anything about Squips and he just *runs*, like books it the hell out of there, because he does not trust this situation one bit.

 

\- But Scully and Mulder keep ambushing Michael. Eventually Michael gets sick of it, and pulls Mulder aside and is like ok Squips are bad business. If you need to get rid of one, drink red Mountain Dew.

 

\- Mulder gets back with Scully, and is like, good news! Squips do exist! You can deactivate them with red Mountain Dew.

 

\- Scully’s eyebrows climb to her hairline.

 

\- Scully is like, ok, so the anti-social headphones kid just told you that you can deactivate brain robots using soda.

 

\- Mulder is like, yeah, that seemed legit to me.

 

\- Scully suspects Michael was stoned.

 

\- Mulder suspects the same thing, but doesn’t see that as a reason not to believe him.

 

\- Somehow Mulder gets squipped. Scully has to overcome her skepticism. The BMC kids have to join forces to help Scully catch and de-Squip Mulder before the Squips can infiltrate the FBI.

 

\- Mulder’s Squip is ET (or his sister, if we wanna go the dramatic route).

 

\- They succeed but the final frame is a closeup of the cigarette smoking man holding a box of suspicious looking tic-tacs.


	11. Jeremy's many good qualities

_Anonymous asked: Can you please name some of Jeremy's good qualities, positive things he brings to his relationships, things like that?_

 

\- He’s instinctually very kind.

\- He’s always striving to improve.

\- He’s highly empathic.

\- He’s gentle.

\- He gives really thoughtful gifts, and has a knack for remembering birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

\- He’s a great listener. He genuinely appreciates people who ramble and talk a lot.

\- He’s willing to take an interest in what other people are interested in, in a way that makes them feel seen and important. If he were to make a friend who was really into figure skating, to give a random example, he’d remember who their favorite figure skater was, and would probably even look up some information about figure skating so he could talk about it with them.

\- Very forgiving! After the Squip incident, he’s one of the first people to fully accept Rich as a friend, and trust him.

\- Good with animals.

\- Sarcastic in a way that isn’t mean, and that other find enjoyable. Generally has a quirky sense of humor.

\- Tons of endearing characteristics - sweater paws, laugh, big smile, talks fast and voice gets higher when he’s excited, etc…

\- Learns from his experiences and mistakes. Furthermore, makes a conscious effort to do so. He’s the kind of person who would actively take the time to write down and try to analyze what he could take away from some of the difficult things he’s faced.

\- Resilient. I see a character who has been through a lot, but he keeps going, and doesn’t give up on the idea of doing his best and being his best self.

\- Destined for good things. I see him as being somebody who struggles a lot when he’s young, and goes through some things that he really needs time to recover from, but manages to start to hit his stride in his mid to late twenties, and just keeps going up from there.

**Author's Note:**

> And then I didn't write those other essays. Someday maybe.


End file.
